Squire wrote:fauniera's victory will mean that for the first time ever, the most popular team wins.

A very good CQ season for him: he won the Giro game, and was only stopped from winning the Tour game by Cimolai's 7th place on the final sprint. He won the minor ranking in the Giro, and was joint green jersey winner in the Tour.

Squire wrote:fauniera's victory will mean that for the first time ever, the most popular team wins.

A very good CQ season for him: he won the Giro game, and was only stopped from winning the Tour game by Cimolai's 7th place on the final sprint. He won the minor ranking in the Giro, and was joint green jersey winner in the Tour.

We are near the end! The GC points from the last WT race of the year have been awarded, and it's just the tail-off of one .HC and one .1 race before we wrap it all up with a bow. Let's take a look at this week's results.

Every single team scored at least ten points this week, which is definitely the last time that will happen this year, given that barely any teams have riders in the last races this year. kabete comes out on top, with the Guangxi combo of Alaphilippe (100 points), Diller (89) and Gaviria (83) leading the way; 14 from Walscheid and finishing points from Konig (doubling his 2017 total!) and Doull puts it away. Josedin finishes second for the 2nd week in a row, with the Ala-Gav combo and contributions from Mareczko and Cavagna to fall juuuust short of the top spot. Eyeballs Out grabs the last podium spot with Diller/Gav/Landa/Bonifazio leading the charge.

Still a bit of jockeying to be done on the rankings, and team abbulf gets their name in lights this week! A 7-place jump just outpaces last week's winner LukasCPH, this week's points winner kabete, and two others tied with a 6-place jump.

No changes here, as the highest place of someone who got points this week is 16th overall. fauniera just misses out on the points this week, and so remains in second place, but they have enough to celebrate, as we'll see below.

fauniera scored 210 this week to be the highest scorer in the top 10 and thus extend their lead; the asian was the second-highest scorer in the top 10, and GP Blanco the third-highest. The podium becomes even more solidified as a result. Hugo Koblet manages to jump a spot, and Blues in the bottle leaps into a tie(!) for 8th with Wallenquist.

Preview of next week - the three teams with Mareczko are going to do quite well.

I do appear to be somehow steadily improving in this game even though I haven't been necessarily following cycling as closely as I used to. Actually, when it comes to picking riders, not being in the know might help to make a more objective judgement, given that you're not as likely to be caught up in hype trains. If I am on board of the bandwagon for some talent, I tend to be prone to overestimate their ability, but ironically when I try to compensate for that I sometimes err and avoid picking riders who I support because I think I might be biased in thinking they will be a good pick. Ironically not being into cycling as much might help you make a more distanced and objective judgment when for instance assessing who are the up and coming talents which might constitute a good pick. A few years ago I knew every significant talent already and had formed opinions about them throughout the season, but now I have to actually research it a bit and maybe this actually improves the calls I make whether or not to pick a talented rider. Anyway, I don't know, just some random theorizing.

It would be interesting to have some statistic over the years to see how well players perform in this game relative to how time they actually spend watching cycling throughout the year. To do it properly would actually be quite complex, because you can spend time on different things when watching cycling, e.g. following espoirs races or not, how much time you spend reading articles/forums etc. and you might have to take into account different types of picks, e.g. not following cycling as closely might give you an edge in objectivity when picking young talented riders, but you might be more prone to overlook a rider who underperformed due to a crash or ilness or something.

Well, this might be it, folks. Only 53 teams scored any points this week with mainly Hainan on offer, and Fuzhou - the last race of the year - doesn't even have any Pro Conti teams at it. There will likely be a few folks who have rare riders and pick up points, but for all intents and purposes, the game is at an end. But that doesn't mean there wasn't some drama right down to the wire. And, of course, a weekly win is a weekly win.

Still some points to be had, and it was the two teams who took Hainan victor Jacopo Mosca that unsurprisingly prevailed this week. The young Italian rider had a respectable 124 points on his cost of 59 coming into Hainan, but exploded to become a decent overall pick with 325 on the year. AupaPyama and scrooll07 both had him, and no other riders scoring this week, and so they share first place. The three teams that had Mareczko come next, as he scored 132 this week, but whereas Josedin and LukasCPH got 5 more from Tvetcov, Magnumpti rises to the podium with the 9 extra points by Edoardo Zardini. These are the small difference makers at the end of the year.

A similar list here, and not a ton of movement, as the standings are pretty entrenched by the end of the year. Certainly, a couple of hundred points is valuable, but at the same time, some spots are separated by that much. DJ Sprtsch, not mentioned in the Top Movers, grabs second on the week in this competition with 78 points from zero-pointer Marc De Maar and 5 more from Asbjorn Kragh Andersen.

There is drama right to the end!! After jockeying the lead back and forth between fauniera and Blues in the bottle, it seemed pretty locked up, with only 4 other teams within striking distance (ie. the max weekly 45 points) of Blues after last week. But one of those was scrooll07, who gets 40 this week for splitting top spot. This puts their team in a 5 point lead in this competition; barring even more drama from Blues or someone having an obscure rider in Fuzhou, this is a last second change in the top of the competition. Even more impressive, the rest of the contenders in this competition have been in the top 10 overall for months, whereas scooll isn't even in the top half of the table - the right picks of riders will get you points on a week-to-week basis, for sure. 6th place in the standings (Italian Gigolo) and 9th (CQManager) also scored points this week but didn't move any spots.

HelgeBlendet was the only team in the top 10 to get any points this week, with 30; but it was a tightly packed enough spot that their team moved up 2 spots into the top 5 in a Vino-on-the-Champs-Elysees (or, much much less dramatic but more recent, Kelderman-in-Madrid) type move. Wallenquist and Blues in the bottle look destined to remain tied in the top 10.

One more week to go in the game! Next week will be a wrap-up post. And it's November 8th, which means it's less than two months to Aussie nationals! Start your long lists if you haven't already...

Well, this has been a busy, busy year for me and I haven't been able to comment on this thread as much. Luckily (well, maybe that's the wrong word) my team has done poorly so I haven't had much to comment about. I think this finish is my worst so far - I had only had one time out of the top 25 or something before, I believe - but my team wasn't terrible or anything. I think a few factors were: that everyone is getting better at this game as time goes on, that because I had two really great years in a row I kinda let myself pick with my heart more, and also just the regular mix of bad luck and picks that seemed like a good idea but weren't great in retrospect. Here's a breakdown of my team, from guys I'm ecstatic about to guys who were a wasted pick.

Home Runs

Michal KwiatkowskiMikel LandaElia VivianiStefan Kung

The fact that this list is a) so small, and b) picked by an average of 76 teams kinda says it all about my year. Nevertheless, these guys were great, like lots of people knew they could be.

Right about where I expected/happy with

Vincenzo NibaliFabio AruJohn DegenkolbSimone Consonni

Again, a small list, but at least there were two rare picks in Nibali and Consonni. I can't imagine how much my team would have tanked if Nibali did. I believe I made a comment at the start of the year that Nibali always gets you thinking that he'll have a terrible year, but manages to pull it out somewhere. That was what September/October was, for sure. If he had performed like I had expected/hoped in Oman, Abu Dhabi and Tirenno-Adriatico, he would have topped 2000. Either way, I'm grateful he pulled it together for a respectable finish. I will also say that thankfully most of my expensive picks fell into these 2 categories, which I think allowed me to finish no lower than I did.

If Lampaert had done anything in Roubaix, he would have moved up a category. Mostly a good year. Bauhaus did almost exactly what I thought he would - the quality of his win in the Dauphine showed his potential for sure. But he just didn't get enough results... a top 5 in the national championships even woulda put him over the top for me. Gougeard did okay, he was a roll of the dice because his points depend on late attacks sticking. GVK had the potential for more, especially with his TT skills. The other guys... that's fine, they are just becoming road pros. Cink just needed to finish 5 spots higher in every GC he was in.

A mixed bag here. Gesink looked like he was gonna do what I expected in the Tour and then bam, injured for the season. Betancur actually looked like he'd turn into a decent pick in the Vuelta, but same deal (although he only woulda moved up one category for me unless he was like top 8 overall with a stage win). Petilli I thought was gonna steadily improve, but he looks like a before-this-year Cattaneo in terms of progression and lack thereof. Power I'm willing to be patient, and Ganna too, but the others (Sepulveda, Grosu, Ponzi) I don't think will ever be the riders I thought they could be. Sepulveda is moving to the Movistar train anyway, which I think is a good fit for him - leadership doesn't seem to be working out, but he can be a good workhorse in the mold of like an Anacona. Grosu, I never thought was the best talent, but he was fast enough, on a team that would go to lots of small races, and in the last Giro stage last year I thought 'man if he could just get his timing better...' But the nadir for me came in the summer when I saw he was down for the extremely long and non-competitive Tour of Quinghai Lake, and I thought it was finally his chance to build some confidence and get some points. Instead, he got a 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th out of 13 stages, losing to such luminous sprinting names as Jon Aberasturi, Dusan Rajovic, Ahmet Orken and Yevgeny Gidich. Whoops! Okay okay, I won't pick him next year.

You know, just almost a third of my team. If you can spot a relatively common thread here, it's the 'hope for a redemption narrative to bear fruit'. I definitely let myself pick with my heart this year; part of that was a time factor, as in I ran out of time to pick my team and so didn't do those last few refining swoops over them to let my logic take hold, and part of that was that I had done really really well the last two years with two podium finishes, so I figured I'd let myself pick for riders I was hoping for, even if I didn't think it was smart. Phinney, Intxausti, Boeckmans, Arredondo, and Malori all fall into that category. Admittedly I didn't really know how poorly Intxausti's recovery was going, so I did think there'd be sporting value in that pick too, but Boeckmans and Malori, and to a certain extent Phinney, I knew they would never be the riders they were at their peak, but I hoped so I convinced myself to pick em. Arredondo too to an extent, although I thought if he made it through the prior year and didn't quit, he must have seen some light at the end of the tunnel. The other guys on the list - Konig I couldn't have predicted would take the whole season to get back, Dombrowski at least had that one year where he showed his promise, and Machado it turns out is just in decline rather than coming off a bad year. I'm truly puzzled by Mamykin, as he looked so great at the Vuelta 2016. But sometimes that just happens. Either way, it's hard to not imagine a team where I picked Bernal and Carapaz instead of Dombro and Malori, for starters.

Ah well, it was a fun year to follow still, and I really enjoy the updates (even if it's all I have time to do and sometimes not for a few days), and of course I love the early season team reveals, discussion, and anticipation. Can't wait to get it started again.

Thanks for hosting and congrats to Fauniera! Looking forward to improving on 51st next year!

The Porte crash did not help this year but so didn't picks like Tsatevich, Konig, Boeckmans, Intxausti etc (just too many of those picks with low yields). Also high scoring riders like Roglic, Kung, Uran and co were never considered so congrats to those that picked them.

The final .1 or above race of the season, Tour of Fuzhou, took place last week, and nary a pro conti team was to be seen. There wasn't much expectation for riders in this game to score, but with 130 teams it's always possible that someone picked an obscure rider that ended up racing this late in the season in Asia. Let's see, shall we?

This Week's Top Scorers

Rank Team Points this week1 VeloRooms 10

That's right! One team scored this week, and everyone else tied for second. Unique pick Dadi Suryadi nearly doubled his points on the season (he has 23 total) to propel VeloRooms to the final spot of glory for the year. Their team did need over 150 points to move from 103rd to 102nd though, so there was no movement in the charts and thus no High Movers for the week.

This is a bit of cheating - it's from the start of October until now, but I figured it'd be good to summarize who had a good season close in this final post. Josedin had a convincingly good month and a half, anchored by Mareczko piling on the late season points as he is wont to do (423 of his 634 total), but also from solid performances in Lombardia and China by Alaphilippe, Aru, and Gaviria (all around or over 200 points). rote_laterne had a great finish too, from a number of sources - no Alaphilippe or Mareczko, and only Aru/Gaviria/Dani Martinez/Theuns over 100 points for the month. But a bunch of guys like Cort/Jans/SK Andersen above 75 points, and a handful in the 50s and 60s. It takes a team. tom_jelte had a blistering finish too, to climb up the higher echelons of the overall standings.

Not as many wild swings towards the end of the season, but still some movement to be had. rote_laterne goes a step higher than the scorers list; Kjellus and zlev11 tie for the last podium spots of the year.

It was mentioned last week, but congrats to scrooll07 who pulls out victory in the jersey competition in the last real possible week! The points from a top finish in Hainan led their team to overtake the rest of the top 5, which was heavily populated with those teams already in the top 10 overall.

It's official - fauniera has taken the 2017 title in the CQ Ranking Manager Game! the asian had the lead for awhile, but it seemed an inevitability as the Vuelta wore on and Lombardia approached that fauniera had more riders still racing at a high level, and in the last month things solidified. Still, congrats to the asian on a fantastic season, as well as GP Blanco, who led for a long time in the middle of the season and was always around the top. tom_jelte had a fantastic run at the end to finish 4th; game founder Hugo Koblet ended with a top 10; there was a tie for 8th place overall; frequent thread contributor and thoughtful CQ analyst Squire finished just outside the top 10; frequent high finisher Geraint Too Fast scored another solid top 20; and really everyone on this list picked well this year - finishing in the top 20 in this comprehensive game is no mean feat. Thanks all, and congrats to the winner!

Congratulations to fauniera, and a big thank you to skidmark for organizing the game. I am quite satisified with my "ninja" year. Finished 19th which is equal to my highest ranking this year. And I am quite sure I wasn't mantioned in any of the weekly updates (109th in green jersey ranking) Team for 2018 almost ready!!!

Congrats to fauniera and everyone else who's happy with the performance of his/her team this year!Never thought Top5 would be possible for me early in the season. Luckily, Teuns happened...

Looking back, I guess the one thing that really helped is probably the fact that Gesink is the only relatively rare pick (< 40 teams) that didn't turn into profit (369 -> 318 on 22 teams). Even then it's not too bad of a return...

Besides Teuns, guys lke Küng, Dillier, Carapaz, Kämna, Van Keirsbulck, and even Boom had some nice improvements and weren't picked by too many teams. Also nice to hit on all those "expensive" guys (> 400) in Aru, Kwiatkowski, Benoot, Degenkolb, and Landa. Benoot only improving by 225 points is almost disappointing, but I definitely won't complaing about that.

Looking forward to next year! Time to prove it's been more luck than knowledge for me so far.

Also a big thanks from me and mad propz to Fauniera. Personally I can take pleasure in my highest placing ever, continuing my string of steady results in the yearly competition. Maybe I should just quit dreaming about the GT games, where I use to suck?:)

Already have a long list of names made during the year, but quite a lot made amends in the last two months of the season and need to be reevaluated.